


The Things We Find Again

by Eikaron



Series: The Things We Remember [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A bit sad, A bit silly, Gen, Holocaust, Memories, Original Character(s), POV Outsider, Shoah, Supernatural reveal, a bit happy, meeting people from the past, right in the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 12:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eikaron/pseuds/Eikaron
Summary: Sometimes the past turns up where you least expect it.





	The Things We Find Again

On a nice sunny day sometime in the early spring of 2019, Anne Brown, born on Monday, July 18thin 1927 as Anna Liebermann, was sitting in a London coffee shop and waiting for her grandniece. It did not bother her very much. She was used to waiting; something that was in no way related to a lack of punctuality by her grandniece. Quite on the contrary, it was Anne's wont to always be half an hour early to any public meeting because it gave her an excuse to sit around and people-watch beforehand. Unlike others her age – who ran out of children to raise and then didn't know what else to do – this was not a habit Anne had only acquired in her senior years. As she had told her grandniece, Lisa, countless times she had always been 'curious about people' (Lisa called it 'unbelievably nosy') and that while she was in overall good health at nearly ninety-two one welcomed any distractions that did not require one to get up. Once you had made it to her age, she felt, you deserved the entertainment to come to you. It was therefore without the slightest bit of guilt that Anne Brown dug into the probably deadly amount of calories– also known as a cheesecake – in front of her and tuned into the conversations buzzing around her.

The table to her right was unfortunately empty, but on the one behind her two women were having a highly-interesting discussion about real estate in the Mayfair area and she listened to their low-key chatter until the waiter brought her another glass of water. Anne wasn't actually thirsty, but her granddaughters were constantly nagging her about staying hydrated and she had promised them to at least try. The short interruption did have the advantage of alerting her to the table to her left: A couple in their early twenties. They were clearly having a break-up talk, although Anne wasn't entirely sure the young man in question was aware of this. It kept her both highly entertained and inwardly cringing through half of her cheesecake, at which point it started to get repetitive and she lost interest. Anne looked around the coffee shop again. Two men had just entered it and were moving promisingly towards the empty table next to her.

One of them was a middle-aged gent wearing slightly old fashioned-clothes and a head enviably full of brown curls. He was also very clearly gay, but Anne supposed that was alright these days. The other man was much younger, about thirty, she estimated, had dark hair and looked quite handsome in his jeans and leather jacket. She wondered what their relation might be.

Upon closer inspection, Anne suddenly realised that they looked familiar to her. Extremely familiar in fact. However, no matter how hard she racked her brain for a connection, she found herself unable to place them anywhere at all. This was odd, as Anne had always had a fairly good memory for faces. She considered the younger man's sunglasses, which were obscuring his eyes entirely and made it difficult to see the whole face. Perhaps she was mistaking them for someone else after all

And yet…

"Auntie Anne!"

Startled, Anne looked up. She had been so focused on trying to remember where she had seen the men before, that she had not noticed her grandniece approaching her.

"Oh, hello, my dear! There you are! I'm so sorry, I must have been elsewhere for a moment, I didn't see you coming at all."

"No worries, Auntie", said Lisa blithely and they exchanged the usual greeting kiss, before she slipped into the chair opposite Anne's. "Did you have to wait for long?"

"Oh, you know me", said Anne. Her gaze flitted to the table on her right, where the mystery men had indeed sat down.

 "Let me guess: You've been here for an hour already, people-watching."

"What do you think of me! It was merely half an hour, my dear", corrected Anne in a mock-stern voice.

Her grandniece lifted an amused eyebrow and then frowned: She had spotted the remains of Anne's cheesecake.

"Oh, Auntie! You know you're not supposed to eat that!", she said, although it sounded defeated more than anything else.

Most of Anne's family had long given up on trying to get her to stick to a healthy diet, especially after she had told them where _they_ could stick said diet. Anne figured that she was ninety-one years old and if she was going to drop dead from too much sugar, then so be it. It certainly beat lying in a hospital bed and being fed strange-tasting gruel until you dropped dead from sheer self-preservation.

"Well, at least you're drinking enough water", added Lisa grudgingly, eyeing the half-empty glass suspiciously.

"So I am", sighed Anne and dutifully took another sip in order to avoid a more detailed inspection of her drinking habits.

With her grandniece-y concerns duly placated, Lisa ordered an espresso and they moved on to other topics; such as Lisa's upcoming graduation, whether she had anyone special in her life ("Not since three weeks ago, which was the last time you asked, Auntie"), what Anne's neighbours were up to ("I think the husband might be having an affair") and if Lisa had any more cat videos for her ("You know, if you got a smartphone you could watch all the cat videos you want").

Nevertheless, Anne's eyes and thoughts kept straying to the other table. From the bits and fragments of their conversation she could catch she gathered that they were having a good-natured but heated debate about Shakespeare of all things and, by the sounds of it, not for the first time. This, too, seemed eerily familiar. If not the topic itself, then the way they were speaking. Like an old married couple, Anne thought, one who has had this exact same argument many times before and would continue to do so until one of them kicked the bucket.

"Auntie?"

Anne tried to concentrate on their voices in particular. There was something about them. The best way she could describe it was that she felt like she recognised them but at the same time had a nagging feeling that something was off. They didn't sound quite _right_ to her, though she couldn't say why she would think that. They were speaking perfectly normal English.

"Auntie Anne?"

Again, Anne startled. 

"I'm so sorry, my dear. I'm afraid I've drifted off again. What was it you were saying?"

"I just said that I don't think Greg's going to marry her… Auntie, are you alright? It's just that – and please don't take this the wrong way – you don't seem very… uhm, _here_ at the moment. If you're not feeling well -"

 Anne, sensing another case of overly worried grandniece coming her way, forcefully tore her attention away from the other table.

 "Oh no, no! I'm fine! No need to worry, Lizzy", she said soothingly, using Lisa's old childhood nickname.

"Are you sure?"

Seeing the anxious look on her grandniece's face, Anne grasped her hand reassuringly.

"I'm feeling fine, dear", she reiterated, "and I do apologise for not paying proper attention to what you said. It's… well, just before you arrived", she lowered her voice, "these two men", she indicated the table with a slight tilt of her head and Lisa tried to glance their way in a manner that looked natural, "came in and I just keep thinking I must know them from somewhere but I can't for the life of me remember where! You know how good I usually am with faces and now I can't place those two at all and it's driving me crazy!"

Anne gave her grandniece a slightly guilty look, relieved to see the creases around her eyes smoothen out and the worry subside. Lisa took another surreptitious peek at the other table over the rim of her coffee cup.

"Well, I've definitely never seen them before", she whispered. "You have no idea at all?"

 Anne looked at the men again. The younger one was resting his elbows on the table and had taken off his sunglasses. He was dangling them from one hand while the other was rubbing the bridge of his nose. 

"Look, angel", he said desperately, his eyes scrunched close and clearly at his wits end.

 The memory struck Anne like lightning.

She _had_ seen him before. The very same man, in the very same posture. She had seen him so many times, both of them.

The last time had been in 1943.

 

####

 

 

_She is six years old and helping out in her parent's grocery shop, stacking cans of lentils._

_The bell rings._

_"Guten Morgen", says Herr Fell and smiles at her. She smiles back._

_"Guten Morgen, Herr Fell", says her mother. "Was darf's sein? Das Übliche?"_

_"Bitte darum", says Herr Fell._ _"Oh, und Zigaretten."translation_

_He buys a lot of them. Eventually, her mother starts including them in his order without asking. They have become part of 'the usual'._

_###_

_She is eleven years old and can't go to school anymore. Yesterday her best friend spit in her face. She is listening to her parents arguing._

_"…müssen hier weg!_ _Wenn nicht jetzt wann dann? Denk an die Kinder!"_

_"Miriam, ich kann meine Eltern nicht einfach hier zurücklassen!"translation _

_###_

_She's thirteen years old and hiding. They can never go outside. She wonders if they ever will again._

_Herr Fell brings them food. She knows they eat more and better than most people; there is somehow always enough for everyone. Herself, her parents, her brother, her aunt and uncle and her three cousins. They don't know where or how he gets it. When she asks Fell, he tells her that Anton takes care of it and that she should not worry about it. She doesn't believe him._

_Many nights, when all the others are asleep, she sits at the backside of the storage rack and listens to the conversations on the other side, the side of freedom. Sometimes she can see them, too, through the little hole in the wood; Herr Fell in his creased white shirt and Herr Krahe in his black uniform. (Raphael, she reminds herself, and Anton. They said it was alright to call them by their first names, but Anna cannot bring herself to do it. It seems so disrespectful.)_

_She knows that even though Herr Krahe rents one of the rooms from Fell they are close friends, too. She used to be scared of him, at first, but now she knows she doesn't have to be. It's good to have one of_ them  _living in the house. No one will come looking for her family here._

_They try, once. A neighbour tipped them off that Herr Fell was possibly harboring someone, the men say, we have to search the house. He scoffs at them and tells them it's ridiculous, but they are welcome to waste their time if they believe someone could hide even a single Jew right under the nose of his subtenant. Because surely, he drawls, they were not accusing a high-ranking SS officer of treason, were they?_

_The men in uniforms whisper among themselves for a long time. Afterwards, they go into the living room, where they put down their rifles and they wait. Raphael serves them watery coffee with icy politeness and tightly pressed lips. When Anton finally gets home, he sneers at the men and throws them out. They never come back._

_Anna watches them drink again, that night. They usually do. Schnaps, mostly, and wine. Occasionally other things, but she never recognizes those. Raphael smokes a lot, Anton even more, until the whole kitchen is filled with grey fumes that somehow never make their way through the cracks and holes in their secret door. She doesn't know where they find all the alcohol and cigarettes either and the bottles always seem to hold more than they should._

_She tells her parents, but they think she is just imagining things. When she sees the bread appear on the table one night, she keeps it to herself. Perhaps it was a dream after all._

_####_

It could not be and yet Anne knew it to be true with unshakeable certainty. Now she knew why they had looked familiar – she had lived with them for years. Now she knew why she had not been able to place them – she had thought them long dead. Now she knew why their voices had seemed strange – the last time she had heard them they had been speaking flawless German.

A long-suppressed memory surfaced in her mind; a loaf of dark bread on a table, turning into many at the wave of a hand and a young girl recounting this tale, awestruck, to her mother and father. They had not believed her but from then on, Anne had believed in angels.

Anton Krahe wore his hair slightly longer these days. Their clothes, too, had changed. Not all that much in the case of Raphael Fell, a lot when it came to Anton. But otherwise the two men – if they even could be called that – looked exactly the same as they had seventy-six years ago.

 Lisa, occupied with blowing on her hot coffee, had not noticed Anne's sudden shock yet.

 She had to be sure. Her throat dry, Anne made to take a sip of water. Her arthritis-ridden fingers quivered so much she very nearly spilled it all despite the glass being only half full.

Anne inhaled shakily, grasped her walking cane tightly for support and leaned over to the table on her right. She cleared her throat. What she was about to do was not a sure-fire way to find out, but it was a start.

It had been so long since she had last spoken her first language. 

"Entschuldigen Sie bitte", she addressed the younger man. The words sounded odd in her own ears. "könnten Sie mir vielleicht sagen wie spät es ist?" 

Startled, the man turned towards her, surprised at being suddenly spoken to by a stranger. But he did not miss another beat when he looked at his phone and replied, the German flowing as easily from his lips as English had done: "Kurz vor zwei."

Only then, it seemed, did he realise that he had just switched languages without noticing.

"Er… woher wussten Sie, dass ich Deutsch spreche?", he asked.  translation

 Tears were starting to well up in Anne's eyes. There was no doubt now.

"Because I know you, Anton Krahe", she said, then regarded the other man. "And you, Raphael Fell. My name is… _was_ Anna Liebermann and I would not be alive today were it not for you."

Upon hearing the name, the reaction was instantaneous: Even though he attempted to hide it, Anton paled visibly and exchanged a quick glance with his friend. A silent agreement was reached.

He laughed nervously. 

"I'm sorry", he said, "but you must be mistaking us for someone else. I don't know an Anton Krahe, my name is… Cr-awford."

She knew he had corrected himself.

"I'm not mistaken", she said. "Please."

"Wait", said Lisa, who had until now listened silently and somewhat confused to the curios exchange, and hastily put down her coffee. "Aunt Anne, did you just say Anton Krahe? Like the SS officer who… " 

She shut up and Anne saw the embarrassment creep into her grandniece's face.

"Aunt Anne, this can't be Anton. He was over twenty years older than you; don't you remember? He must be long dead by now. Mr. Fell too." She looked at the men apologetically. "I'm so sorry. My aunt hasn't been well today."

"It's no problem", said Raphael smoothly, giving Lisa a benevolent smile. "Happens to the best of us."

Anne glared at them all.

"I'm perfectly fine", she said snidely. "Versuchen Sie nicht mich für dumm zu verkaufen, Herr Fell! Ich bin alt, aber nicht verkalkt." translation  

The men exchanged another look. Anne watched Krahe raise his eyebrows. Fell shrugged.

"Apparently not", he sighed and gently added: "And it was Raphael to you, Anna."

Then he made a little gesture with his hand. The noise around them quieted. People were talking and moving just as they had before, but now she only heard them as if from afar. That and Anne had the sudden eerie feeling that none of them could see her even if they looked directly at her. It startled her, though it did not scare her.

"What the-", exclaimed Lisa and twisted her head in surprise.

Anton waved a hand languidly and her grandniece's face went slack-jawed and blank. 

"She's fine", he told Anne, before she could ask. "She won't remember any of this."

 Anne merely nodded; not entirely sure she would be able to speak at the moment.

 "Well", asked Raphael awkwardly, "Erm. It has been a long time, hasn't it. Oh, I'm sorry! How rude of me – would you prefer it if we spoke German?"

"Really, angel? _That's_ the first thing that comes to your mind?"

"Well, excuse me for not having a ready-made script for 'Hello, the last time we met was over seventy years ago, when you were just a girl. Glad to see our efforts to keep you alive paid off", said Raphael huffily. 

Anne could not help but break into a wide smile. They had not changed one bit. 

"Who are you?", she asked, "No… _what_ are you? Angels?" 

For some reason Anton seemed to find this highly amusing.

"Not… quite", he said. "Well, Aziraphale is."

"Aziraphale?"

What a strange name. Anne turned it over in her mouth.

"Oh, I _see_ ", she said. "Clever." 

Curious, she turned to Anton.

"Do you have a real name too?"

"It's Crowley", he said.

"That doesn't sound very angelic. And why did you pick 'Anton' as a first name of all things?"

"I'm not an angel", replied Crowley simply. "And Anton because my full name is Anthony James Crowley. Anthony. Anton. Dropped the 'James' though."

Anne nodded. 

"If you're not an angel, then what are you? You're clearly not… mortal."

 She gestured with her cane. 

Anton took off his sunglasses and Anne gasped when she saw his eyes. Coloured a bright yellow, with thin slit pupils and a slightly glassy quality about them they did not look like any eyes she had ever seen on a human. They looked like a snake's.   

"I'm a demon", he said. "Better not mention that Above though, they're not too keen on Aziraphale hanging out with me."

"You're a…"

"Demon", supplied Aziraphale.

"But-"

"Don't worry, my dear."

He took her hand and patted it.

"Crowley is one of the good ones."

The way he said it, it sounded like an underhanded insult. This impression was solidified when Crowley snorted and said: "Well, _you're_ one of the bad angels."

"How did you hide your eyes all those years?", Anne blurted out.

She felt like a little girl when she said it, focusing on the least important bit, but they did not seem surprised she was latching onto this of all things.

"With difficulty", said Crowley laconically. 

He blinked.

In an instant, the snake eyes were gone. Instead there was a pair of light grey ones in their place, with round pupils. Human ones. The ones she knew. 

"Gives me a headache, keeping them like this all the time. I hate always having to pay attention to it. Hence the sunglasses", he explained, and held them up.

"I see", said Anne faintly.

"Anyway…"

Aziraphale looked at Crowley in a way she couldn't quite parse. 

"We'd better get going", said Crowley quickly.

"Yes. It's not… we shouldn't be here", agreed Aziraphale. He was fussing with his coat.

Anne didn't tell him they had only just arrived. She knew they would not stay, knew that she was blessed to have even gotten a moment with them. The question fell from her lips before she had even fully formed it. 

"Will you make me forget?", she asked.

The silence was heavy. Once again, the men, no, the angel and the demon, glanced at each other; the wordless communication of two people who had known each other for all of eternity. A frown here, a minimally raised eyebrow there. A decision was made.

"No", said Raphael finally. "No, I don't think that's necessary."

They stood up. Anton put his sunglasses back on.

"It was good seeing you again, Anna", he said and smiled at her. "Don't eat too much of that cheesecake."

And just like that, they were gone.

 

###

 

 "Aunt Anne, are you alright? Have you drifted off again?", asked Lisa in a concerned tone, seemingly unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

 "I…no, I'm…"

Their table was as spotless as if no one had ever been sitting there at all.

"Lisa, did you see where the two men at this table went?", she asked.

"What men?"

Lisa sounded genuinely confused.

"Oh, never mind", said Anne quietly, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "I'm… I must be a bit confused today."

"I can see that. Are you sure you don't want to go home?" 

Anne looked down at her conspicuously empty plate. She could not for the life of her remember having finished the cheesecake. It seemed that old age was finally getting to her.

"Perhaps that would be-", she began and then stopped and frowned at it.

On the table next to the plate laid two small feathers, one white and one black. She took them carefully. They were light and soft and if she held them up the right way, they had a faint glow to them. They looked like she had always imagined angel wings.

"Hey, where did those feathers come from?", asked Lisa, who had been rummaging through her handbag for her purse.

"From... friends", said Anne.

And she broke into a wide smile.

 

**Epilogue**

"You know, I could technically still be alive. I did the math. It'd be pretty unlikely though", pondered Crowley.

"You'd be a runner-up for the Guinness book of records", replied Aziraphale, walking alongside Crowley with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his camelhair coat. "I still think we should have wiped her memory."

"Nah. Let her have this", Crowley told him with a crooked smile. "Honestly, who is she going to tell? And she's what, ninety-two? She'll know soon enough."

"That was tasteless", said Aziraphale.

 "Oh, please! When I could have said things like 'she'll kick it soon enough' or 'won't be long until she bite-' "

"Yes, _thank you_ , I get the point", Aziraphale cut him off. "You're insufferable, do you know that?"

"And that's why you like me", said Crowley smugly.

They walked on in silence.

Once they reached St. James Park, Aziraphale pulled a paper bag with bird feed out of his coat pocket. It had not been there before.

"You didn't have to steal her cheesecake, though."

"It was for her own good. That thing had way too much fat and sugar." 

"Pull the other one."

 

* * *

 

  
1 _"Good morning", says Mr. Fell and smiles at her. She smiles back._  
_"Good morning, Mr. Fell", says her mother. "What can I get you? The usual?"  
_ _"Please", says Herr Fell. "Oh, und cigarettes."_

2" _…have to leave! When, if not now? Think of our children_ _!"  
__"Miriam, I can't just abandon my parents like that!"_

3   
"Excuse me", she addressed the younger man. The words sounded odd in her own ears. "could you tell me what time it is?" [...]  
"Almost two [o'clock]." Only then, it seemed, did he realise that he had just switched languages without noticing.  
"Er… how did you know I spoke German?", he asked.

4 "Do not try to take me for a fool, Mr. Fell! I might be old, but I'm not fossil!"

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: So I wrote Crowley "correcting" his name from 'Crowley' to 'Crawford' because he was afraid Anna would make the connection of 'Krahe' to 'Krähe' = crow but...like... Crawford is NOT ACTUALLY ALL THAT FAR OFF those buggers literally go 'caw caw' and now I'm feeling like a total idiot who didn't think this through. On the other hand this is the guy who changed his name from Crawley to Crowley which is OBVIOUSLY a huge difference so yeah, totally in character. ( Aziraphale kept his name by the way because "Fell" is a German word meaning fur. Certainly not a terribly common name in Austria/Germany at the time (or now), but I doubt it would have roused suspicion.)
> 
> ETA (2): Also it just occurred to me the whole point of the exchange was probably lost on non German-speaking readers anyway??*sigh* Think before you write.


End file.
